Traders are betting that staff need a new method to share data throughout a company — each throughout the pandemic and after.
Seattle startup Voodle introduced a $6 million funding spherical led by Madrona Enterprise Group and Vulcan Capital, with participation from M12, Cisco Investments and Hearst Ventures.
Voodle places a brand new spin on office communication with its TikTok-like app meant to exchange lengthy video calls or text-based notes with bite-sized selfie-oriented video clips.
The corporate launched earlier this year with a singular backstory. A lot of its workers beforehand labored collectively at Pixvana, which constructed immersive video enhancing software program and raised $20 million. Pixvana shuttered towards the tip of 2019 after struggling to achieve traction for its augmented/digital actuality platform.
Voodle was born after CEO Forest Key and different Pixvana execs noticed a chance to use social-based communication types at work.
The video clips are searchable and channel based mostly. They arrive with transcriptions and might be shared through different office apps corresponding to Hubspot or Salesforce, which simply announced its plan to accumulate Slack.
Corporations corresponding to Thriller, Leasable, Killer Visible Methods, Loopie and others are utilizing Voodle.
The app — obtainable on iOS, Android, and on the net — was created earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic hit, however it might show to be far more beneficial with the shift to distant work.
“Our early use instances are all about serving to groups which have gone distant and are affected by Zoom fatigue and Slack overload,” Key mentioned. “Corporations and workers all over the place are looking for the best distant work tech stack which requires instruments that provide extra environment friendly methods of staying related and aligned.”
What occurs to Voodle in a post-pandemic world stays to be seen. A latest McKinsey report discovered that greater than 20% of the workforce might be simply as efficient working remotely three-to-five days per week than they might be on the workplace every day. Different surveys discover little-to-no change in productiveness from distant staff.
Tech giants corresponding to Google, Fb, and others are permitting staff to remain residence till subsequent summer season. Some firms together with Microsoft are rolling out hybrid workplace models that blend distant work with an precise workplace.
“Whereas individuals will definitely head again to workplaces after all of the mud has settled, distant work and hybrid fashions are right here to remain — and Voodle is the proper answer to maintain groups completely happy, productive and in sync,” Key mentioned.
One other new Seattle startup called Spot can also be leaping on the alternative introduced by distant work with software program that acts as a “residence base” for colleagues. Spot is led by founders from Outreach, the billion-dollar Seattle-based enterprise gross sales software program startup.
Voodle has 15 workers and plans to double its headcount with the contemporary money.
The buyers who participated within the $6 million spherical all beforehand backed Pixvana.
“We see Voodle as a brand new enterprise software that’s effortlessly built-in into the on a regular basis workflow,” Tim Porter, managing director at Madrona Enterprise Group, mentioned in a press release. “It’s easy and efficient – however, as importantly, it’s additionally enjoyable to make use of.”
Different former Pixvana execs now serving to lead Voodle embody CFO Lisa Ryan Tripathi; CMO Tamara Turner; and Beverly Vessella, head of product.
Pixvana co-founders Scott Squires, Bill Hensler, and Sean Safreed usually are not concerned with Voodle.
Based in 2015, Pixvana had shifted from concentrating on shoppers to an enterprise focus through VR training services.
Key, a former chief at Microsoft and Adobe, beforehand sold Seattle hotel marketing startup Buuteeq to Priceline in 2014.
— to www.geekwire.com
